Victorian House Rescue: Photos from the first visit

Here are photos from our first visit:

View from the street. That porch is obviously not original to the house.

The back yard. The stone wall baffled us. Is it from a garden, or the foundation of an older house?

Half of the exterior walls are half painted. The last owner had a very difficult time finishing anything he started.

These photos don't do the size of this place justice. (I'm not bringing my good camera to shoot any of these images, so please excuse the snapshot quality.) The attic is pretty much another floor.

This is the best detail of the attic, a closed off room with the roof as pointy as a giant pencil. Unfortunately this is in the center of the house and can not be seen from the ground.

This is the only place in the house free of the owners possessions.

This is the master bedroom. There is a fireplace in every room......

.....and every fireplace is bricked up. This is what looks like one of two original mantels in the house.

The second bedroom is even less impressive. I don't know what happened to the mantel that once lived here, but I hope its in a good home with a family that loves it very much.

This is on the second floor taken from outside the master bedroom. I cant wait to remove the paint off that banister and stain it a dark color! The bathroom is really small, like New York City apartment small. We are probably going to extend it into the maids bedroom, a small room next to the attic stairs to the right in this photo.

This is the back staircase or maids staircase. Many old Victorian houses have a staircase that leads directly into the kitchen for the servants. This is open upstairs and walled off downstairs. I guess this was done to make more room in the kitchen. Pete wants to make it into a "hidden" stairway with a false wall at the top.

The bottom of the maids staircase is to the left of the refrigerator where that spackled sheet rock is.

If you look closely you can see the word "window" written on the wall. Yes, there is a window behind the sheetrock. We have yet to understand why someone would board up a window and write a reminder to themselves that its there.

This is the fireplace in the kitchen, we are guessing this is original to the house.

This is the living room. The ceilings are about 12 feet tall on the first floor. This is the only room on the ground floor without a drop ceiling.

Don't know whats going on with that piano but we may pull the top off, take it outside and grow flowers in it. The glass cleaner adds an element of humor.

This is the fireplace in the living room. This photo shows the smoke damage due to the owner running kerosene heaters in the house improperly. There is evidence of this all over the first floor.

The top three photos are the dining room with more soot damage. The bottom picture is another attempt by the last owner to maintain the house. There are so many examples of incomplete projects in this house!